Netanyahu election may increase American Jewish alienation from Israel, leaders here warn
Reform movement head Rick Jacobs: ‘This is going to be a challenging time.’
By Debra Nussbaum Cohen | Mar. 20, 2015 | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/.premium-1.648028
NEW YORK – Several national leaders of the American Jewish community this week were openly critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s successful 11th hour pitch to his conservative base, in which he decried Arab citizens of Israel voting, and his pledge not to allow a Palestinian state.
While Netanyahu qualified his statement significantly in a U.S. television interview with Andrea Mitchell two days after the election, saying that there can be no Palestinian state right now, but that such an outcome is not permanently off the table, many in the U.S. remained worried.
They are concerned about Israel’s increasing isolation on the world stage and the Obama administration’s apparent disenchantment with Netanyahu, who openly flaunted the American leader’s wishes when he spoke directly to Congress just two weeks before Israel’s March 17th election.
They are also worried about an ever-widening breach between most American Jews and their sense of connection to Israel.
“It would be hard to not be disheartened, distressed and frankly stunned by the video and the way in which it portrayed citizens of Israel doing what we pray all citizens do, which is voting,” Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, America’s largest Jewish denomination, told Haaretz in an interview. “To rouse the base by saying ‘they’re coming in droves’ is anti-democratic and such a sad commentary on how Arab citizens of Israel are viewed,” he said.